Prologue

TERRIBLY BEAUTIFUL AND HORRIBLY INTERESTING
Derangement

Ancient books state: knowing the right name of something means to conquer it. Language knows more about us that we do. It remembers longer, preserves better. Thus our derangements are first shown in the language. What our language in the public space speaks about us today is ultimately worrying. A network of poisonous media, managing and social-engineering instrument, deteriorated the level of linguistic culture so much that we dangerously resemble a group of vulgarians. The young generation brought up in such a way uses a vocabulary with about fifty words and a chart with twenty-three letters. Semi-illiteracy became a status symbol, like a pet. The fatuous slang possessed the linguistic mainstream, just as trivial literature squeezed out the artistic. Everything is becoming terribly beautiful and horribly interesting. This and that, broooo. Life is a strip, trip, jeep.
It is even more difficult in the field of politics and history. When someone in the Serbian media linguistically treats the occupied southern province as a state, without reservations, it is no longer a subject of discussion. It implies strict legal sanctions, firing, resignation, in several cases even arresting. If we are a real state and if we are serious. However, when a nation calls its great tragedy by the name given by those that caused it, it is brainless masochism and eclipse. Example? Most Serbian media call the events from August 1995 – persecution of about 250.000 Serbs from western Serbian lands by Croatian-American military formations – the Storm. And the Storm was preceded by the Flash. That was the code name of the criminal attacks given by those who committed the crime. Can the victim use the same name for it? From the Serbian aspect, the only right name for those dreadful events is Persecution of Serbs from Krajina. Just using the correct name, obligatorily and regularly, would put many things in the right place. Including understanding of reality and all our appeals to the God of Justice. The silence of great Serbian waitings would gain an entirely different meaning and sound.